April Fools
by F86
Summary: A chance encounter in the morgue.
1. Chapter 1

April Fools 

Doctor Gregory House plugged his Stratocaster in and prepared to play Baba O'Reilly in the morgue. His team was struggling with their newest case, but if he ignored his cell phone, they might not find him for hours. As he readied himself he thought he heard a noise. As he began to play there was a definite noise. He stopped and listened, but heard nothing. He hit one chord and it was back. Picking up his cane he limped closer to one of the freezers, placing an ear against it, he hits a chord on the Strat. There is a load thump… from the inside. House treats himself to a Vicadin and opens the freezer, before he can react, two hands reach out and grab the door jamb and the slab rolls out. House staggers back and stumbles into a chair as a seemingly healthy, muscular, naked guy extricates himself. "You know they don't build these things like they used to." He says to the gaping doctor.

"Time was when a couple of good smacks would pop the latch." Greg watches as the pony tailed man walks to the closet and tries to open it. "Got the key?" the befuddled doctor shakes his head as the man finds a lab coat thrown over a chair and puts it on. "Duncan MacLeod" he says as he extends a hand. Greg notices that the hand is very cold as he takes it.

"How did you end up in there?" House asks as his curiosity begins to rage. Duncan shrugs. House limps to the rack with the charts and finds one with MacLeod's name and reads quickly looking for signs of misdiagnosis or something that could make even a doctor think a living patient was dead. His eyes focus on the cause of death, car vs. pedestrian accident and MacLeod was the pedestrian, a long list of injuries followed, several of which would be fatal, and there was also a note that the "accident" may have been a murder. Diagnostically this is uninteresting, except the corpse is looking for shoes on the other side of the room. Perhaps it was the wrong guy. Checking a photo, that theory is dismissed. Greg thinks what the differential is for a guy that "died" of major injuries but if fully healed in, he looks at the chart and calculates, six hours.

Greg catches a change in demeanor of his "patient" as Duncan tenses and becomes very alert, moving to the hinged side of the door and flattening himself against the wall with a pair of office scissors in his hand eying the door. The door opens to reveal Doctor Cuddy with a plastic bag of clothes and a long object wrapped in newspaper. Cuddy enters cautiously eyeing Greg with the look she gives him when she is not amused by his latest escapade. She closes the door and locks it.

"Hey Duncan" she says as she tosses the bag onto a desk and puts the long object next to it. The two embrace ignoring House. "I came as soon as I could when saw your name on the report." she says as they break the embrace "I was tied up with a fund raiser or I would have been here sooner."

Duncan replies "I thought I read you ran this place. How have you been?"

"I've been well. Good to see you again."

"We'll have to catch up later." Cuddy smiles as Duncan dresses and leaves.

Cuddy turns to House, folds her arms, and glares. "What the devil was that?" House stammers "You can't let him leave he's a medical marvel!" Cuddy continues to glare. "Well you CAN'T."

Cuddy responds "What? Keep a perfectly healthy man in a hospital against his will?"

"I could have found a reason." says House knowing his leg precludes him from running after Duncan.

Cuddy points to a chair and House sits down. "Listen to me carefully House. I cannot have you talking about this or starting to research it so I'm just going to tell you. There are people who are immortal, more or less, and live amongst us secretly. You will need to take my word for it."

Greg stammers, a medical marvel for him, "There are more like him? And how do you know?"

Cuddy responds "There are not many, and I know because I am one of them."

A wide eyed House responds "You are…?"

Cuddy slides her curvaceous rump onto the desk, "I was born in Ireland in 1825 and came to America because of the potato famine….." Several hours pass as Cuddy lays down a long story ending with "….. and then I met you in medical school. The rest you know." Greg's eyes have glazed over.

"By the way, House, it is April first." Cuddy says as he leaves the morgue.

House sits alone in the chair bouncing his cane thinking. "What is the differential? Which is more likely, immortals including a 185 year old Cuddy or that Cuddy had gone to ridiculous lengths to pull a prank on him? Concluding the latter House heads back for his office, he was never going to admit that she had him.


	2. Chapter 2

House had been observing that Thirteen behavior after learning that she had Huntington's had entered a new phase suddenly. She had been taking risks to indulge in a lifetime's worth of thrills in a few years. Now suddenly she seemed to be making long term plans. This intrigued House. Also, he had noticed that just before this change in behavior someone had been admitted to the hospital under a false name reserved for celebrities, an action only Cuddy could approve. This patient was only there for about eight hours and those hors were the night before Thirteen had been absent with no explanation. Cuddy likewise had gone missing. Both events were out of character.

As he was pondering his scheme to find out if there was a connection, a custodian he'd befriended mentioned that a hospital bed had needed to be replaced because it had been damaged. The custodian had mentioned that from his time in the military he'd noticed that there was the smell of gunpowder which led him to check the sheets being trashed and he'd noticed the stippling from a gun fired at close range around a bullet hole. The custodian save the sheet for House and it contained considerable a blood. A check the room number revealed that this was the room of the mystery patient. The shooting could explain why the patient was there for such a short time. Digging deeper, House found that the doctor for the mystery patient was Adam Pierson and found out that there was no doctor with that name.

When House went to Cuddy, she first denied that the false name had been used, but after being pressed she simply told House to let it go and devote his attention to his patient. House met Wilson for lunch in the cafeteria and then returned to his office.

As House walks into his office he finds a man casually sitting at his desk drinking a beer and bouncing House's ball off the floor and wall catching it in his free hand. The man is wearing a dark trench coat. "Don't get up." House says as he walks in. "Thanks" the man says continuing to play catch with the wall. "You are Gregory House I'm thinking." He adds.

"And you are….?" House asks. "I'm just a guy that your friend Cuddy brought in to solve a case you couldn't." The man answers and House just looks at him in silence. "Actually, you could if you knew what Cuddy and I knew. The solution was obvious, if one had the will to implement it."

"You would be Doctor Adam Pierson I assume." House asks. "I would. Want a beer?" the man asks. House shakes his head but asks. "Who was the patient?" Adam smiled and responds "Someone you know, that's why Cuddy used the false name."

"I've checked the registers and you're not a doctor." House says trying to get a rise from the casual stranger. Adam shakes his head "I was once, University of Heidelberg class of 1453." Memories of a conversation with Cuddy flood back into House's mind. "Want me to join your team?" Adam adds with a smile.

"House, Cuddy hoped you would not have noticed…" Adam says as he walks to the door, locks it, and closes the blinds. "But she knew if you did you would not stop until you had some answers…. And it is important that you do stop. People like Cuddy and I live in secret. We also stop aging and become immune to disease when we suffer a violent death. Before that happens, we live normal lives ignorant of what we are. Afterwards, we can sense others like ourselves. But we must learn everything else from others of our kind."

"Some of this I heard from Cuddy awhile back when a guy came back to life in the morgue…" House observes. "Yup, Duncan. He wasn't the first and he won't be the last." House nods. "How many…?" he asks. "How many like me?" House nods. "Not many, I can go decades without meeting another.

"It was Thirteen. Cuddy was unwilling to give her a violent death herself, but she knew it was the only way. I don't know how she convinced her, but she distracted her so Thirteen wouldn't see it coming. Single shot straight through the heart. It was over quickly. We took her to the morgue and cleaned her up and waited for her recovery. Cuddy will teach her how to survive. But it is important that nobody knows, otherwise Thirteen will need to start a new life somewhere else." House nods slowly.

"Oh and one other thing… Cuddy wanted me to tell you… It's April 1." Adam tosses House the ball and strolls out.

House is unable to focus for the rest of the day but he observes Thirteen closely.

As he gets on his bike to leave at the end of the day, Cuddy drives by with Thirteen in her car and they both smile and give him a small wave.


End file.
